With the looming decisive second round in the French elections, there is renewed scrutiny on the National Front and its titular head Marine Le Pen.

Networked with various figures ranging from the milieu of Donald Trump to that of Turkish president Erdogan, the National Front and the Le Pens (father Jean-Marie and daughter Marine) are carrying on the fascist tradition in France.

The second of two shows, this program continues our examination of French deep politics, scrutinizing powerful economic and financial arrangements that determined the Franco-German political dynamic throughout most of the twentieth century and, thus far, through the twenty-first as well.

Critical to our understanding is the dynamic of occupying the high ground on both sides of a political divide. This program underscores how this has placed Germany in a key strategic position on both sides of key political struggles: In the pre-World War II era and postwar era as well; In the right-left political divide in French politics; In the struggle between anti-immigrant/anti-Muslim advocates such as the National Front and Muslim-Brotherhood linked elements in the Islamist community.

Key elements of discussion include:

1. Review of Steve Bannon’s ideological fondness for French anti-Semite and Vichy collaborationist Charles Maurras. Maurras’ Action Francaise is a direct antecedent of the National Front. ” . . . . One of the primary progenitors of the party was the Action Française, founded at the end of the 19th century. . . .”

2. Review of the relationship between former president Francois Mitterand (a socialist) and French Holocaust implementer and Vichy police official Rene Bousquet, who was close to Mitterand and helped to finance his campaign and those of other left-wing French politicians. With financial influence in left-wing parties, Germany can help motivate the French left to band together to defeat the French National Front and its anti-EU, anti-NATO ideology. Potential leftists can also be channelled into an anti-immigrant/anti-Muslim position along that of the National Front. ” . . . . . . . The most damning of all charges against Mitterrand and his right wing connections is probably his long lasting friendship with René Bousquet, ex secrétaire général of the Vichy police. . . . In 1974, René Bousquet gave financial help to François Mitterrand for his presidential campaign against Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. In an interview with Pierre Favier et Michel Martin-Roland Mitterrand claimed that he was not the only left wing politician to benefit from Bousquet’s money, as René Bousquet helped finance all the principal left wing politicians from the 1950s to the beginning of the 1970s, including Pierre Mendès France. . . .”

3. Discussion of Francois Mitterand’s primary role in establishing the Euro, as a prerequisite for German reunification (his alleged “fear” of a reunified Germany should be taken with a grain of salt in light of his collaborationist background and relationship with Rene Bousquet: ” . . . . He [Robert Zoellick] explained his understanding of how Europe got its common currency. . . . it was very clear that European monetary union resulted from French-German tensions before unification and was meant to calm Mitterrand’s fears of an all-too-powerful Germany. According to Zoellick, the euro currency is a by-product of German unification. . . . in strategic terms, Germany’s influence has never been greater. As the continent wants to bank on Germany’s AAA rating, Berlin can now effectively dictate fiscal policy to Athens, Lisbon and Rome – perhaps in the future to Paris, too. . .”

4. More about the Euro (launched with the critically important assistance of Francois Mitterand: “. . . . It [the euro] has turned the Germans into the new rulers of Europe. And it has consigned France to be the weaker partner in the Franco-German relationship. . . .”

5. Analysis of the decisive relationship between French steelmakers belonging to the Comite des Forges and their German counterparts and Ruhr coal producers, one of the foundational elements of the Fifth Column that is antecedent to the National Front: ” . . . . The struggle of the interwar period was not simply a clash between French interests on the one side and German interests on the other. During the development of the Ruhr-Lorraine industrial complex, like-minded industrialists in France and Germany had become directors of jointly owned and jointly controlled financial, industrial, and distributing enterprises. In many cases common views on questions of economic organization, labor policy, social legislation, and attitude toward government had been far more important to the industrialists than differences of nationality or citizenship. . . . ”

6. The economic collaboration between French and German oligarchs worked to the advantage of Germany: ” . . . .It is curious to note that only the French appeared to have this conflict between public policy and private activities. On the German side, complete co-ordination seems to have been preserved between national and private interests; between officials of the German Republic and the leaders of German industry and finance. . . .”

7. Exemplifying the operation of the pro-German Fifth Column in the Ruhr-Lorraine industrial complex is the relationship between the De Wendel and Rochling interests: ” . . . . During World War I the De Wendels, the influential French-German banking and industrial family which headed the French wing of the International Steel Cartel through their Comite des Forges and whose members had sat in the parliaments of both France and Germany, were able to keep the French army from destroying industrial plants belonging to the German enterprises of the Rochling family. . . . . . . . The Rochling family, with their powerful complex of coal, iron, steel and banking enterprises in Germany, has for generations played in close harmony with the de Wendel family. . . .”

8. The De Wendel/Rochling links were so profound that the Rochlings were called upon to help build the French defensive Maginot Line: ” . . . . On the other hand, as far as the French steel makers’ association, the Comite des Forges, and in particular the de Wendels who headed the Comite, were concerned, it was business as usual-or in this case, business as unusual-that prevailed. . . . When it came time for France to build its impregnable Maginot Line, who should be called in to supply steel and technical assistance but the German firm of the brothers Rochling. . . .”

9. After the French capitulation, the Vichy government–to no one’s surprise–exonerated the Rochlings: ” . . . . Now comes the outbreak of World War II. The French army marching into the Saar during the ‘phony war’ period in 1939, received orders not to fire on or damage the plants of the ‘war criminals,’ the brothers Rochling. In 1940 came the blitz and the fall of France. The Vichy government passed a decree exonerating the Rochlings and canceling their forty-year prison sentences. . . .”

10. The Franco-German steel cartel, in turn, belonged to an international steel cartel featuring the Thyssen firm Vereinigte Stahlwerke (later Thyssen A.G.). The Thyssen interests are inextricably linked with the Bormann capital network. The Thyssens’ principal American contacts were the Bush family. ” . . . . They marked the formation of the United Steel Works in Germany, as a combination of the four biggest steel producers Ernst Poensgen, Fritz Thyssen, Otto Wolff, and the others who drew this combine together had managed to get over a hundred million dollars from private investors in the United States. Dillon Read & Company, the New York investment house which brought Clarence Dillon, James V. Forrestal, William H. Draper, Jr., and others into prominence, floated the United Steel Works bonds in the United States . . . . ”

11. During the occupation of France, the Franco-German corporate connection yielded further German capital domination of French firms: ” . . . The Third Republic’s business elite was virtually unchanged after 1940. . . . They regarded the war and Hitler as an unfortunate diversion from their chief mission of preventing a communist revolution in France. Antibolshevism was a common denominator linking these Frenchmen to Germans. . . . The upper-class men who had been superbly trained in finance and administration at one of the two grand corps schools were referred to as France’s permanent ‘wall of money,’ and as professionals they came into their own in 1940. They agreed to the establishment of German subsidiary firms in France and permitted a general buy-in to French companies. . . .

12. The Franco-German corporate links and the domination of that relationship by corporate Germany and the Bormann network continued into the postwar period: ” . . . . Society’s natural survivors, French version, who had served the Third Reich as an extension of German industry, would continue to do so in the period of postwar trials, just as they had survived the war, occupation, and liberation. These were many of the French elite, the well-born, the propertied, the titled, the experts, industrialists, businessmen, bureaucrats, bankers. . . . Economic collaboration in France with the Germans had been so widespread (on all levels of society) that there had to be a realization that an entire nation could not be brought to trial. . . .”

13. Corporate German/Bormann control of French commerce and finance is the determining factor in contemporary French affairs: ” . . . . The understandings arrived at in the power structure of France reach back to prewar days, were continued during the occupation, and have carried over to the present time. [New York Times reporter Flora] Lewis, in her report from Paris, commented further: ‘This hidden control of government and corporations has produced a general unease in Paris.’ Along with the unease, the fact that France has lingering and serious social and political ailments is a residue of World War II and of an economic occupation that was never really terminated with the withdrawal of German troops beyond the Rhine. . . .”

14. The Franco-German corporate Axis facilitated the De Wendel family’s postwar assistance of Friedrich Flick, another of Hitler’s top industrialists.: ” . . . . The understandings arrived at in the power structure of France reach back to prewar days, were continued during the occupation, and have carried over to the present time. Lewis, in her report from Paris, commented further: ‘This hidden control of government and corporations has produced a general unease in Paris.’ Along with the unease, the fact that France has lingering and serious social and political ailments is a residue of World War II and of an economic occupation that was never really terminated with the withdrawal of German troops beyond the Rhine. . . .”

15. The seamless incorporation of the Franco-German corporate axis into the German-dominated EU and EMU has yielded the ability of the Federal Republic to interfere in the French political process: ” . . . . Like Fillon, Macron is considered ‘Germany-compatible’ by a German think tank, whereas all other candidates are viewed as unsuitable for ‘constructive cooperation’ because of their criticism of the EU and/or of NATO. Recently, Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble ostentatiously recommended voting for Macron. Berlin’s interference on behalf of Macron shows once again that German domination of the EU does not stop at national borders, and – according to a well-known EU observer – surpasses by far Russia’s feeble meddling in France. . . .”

The program concludes with rumination about the role of anti-Muslim sentiment in the French and U.S. political process and the presence of Underground Reich-linked elements on both the “anti-immigrant” side and the Islamist/Muslim Brotherhood side.

Program Highlights Include:

1. Review of the Islamist/Muslim Brotherhood Turkish Refah Party (the direct antecedent of Erdogan’s AKP) and its relationship to Ahmed Huber of the Bank Al-Taqwa.

2. Review of the role of Ahmed Huber (later of the Bank Al-Taqwa) in introducing Turkish Muslim Brotherhood’s Necmettin Erbakan with Marine Le Pen’s father: ” . . . . . . . . A second photograph, in which Hitler is talking with Himmler, hangs next to those of Necmettin Erbakan and Jean-Marie Le Pen [leader of the fascist National Front]. Erbakan, head of the Turkish Islamist party, Refah, turned to Achmed Huber for an introduction to the chief of the French party of the far right. Exiting from the meeting . . . . Huber’s two friends supposedly stated that they ‘share the same view of the world’ and expressed ‘their common desire to work together to remove the last racist obstacles that still prevent the union of the Islamist movement with the national right of Europe.’. . .”

3. Review of The Camp of the Saints, a racist, anti-immigrant book valued both by French National Front types and Trump advisor Steve Bannon.

With the French elections headed toward a second round, there is renewed scrutiny on the National Front and its titular head Marine Le Pen, who finished second in the race. Networked with various figures ranging from the milieu of Donald Trump to that of Turkish president Erdogan, the National Front and the Le Pens (father Jean-Marie and daughter Marine) are carrying on the fascist tradition in France.

Key elements of discussion include:

1. The prominent role of Nazi collaborators and French SS in the formation of the National Front: “. . . . Ex-wartime Nazi collaborators were prominent in the early leadership of the National Front in the 1970s–including members of the French SS and collaborationist Milice, and even a leading official of the French wartime anti-Jewish agency, a minor cog in the Holocaust. . . .”

2. In the context of Le Pen’s kind words from “Team Trump,” we noted that, in FTR #951 Trump confidant and advisor Steve Bannon has been influenced by Charles Maurras, part of the French fascist Fifth Column that subverted French resistance to the Third Reich’s armies.

3. Ms. Le Pen denied French complicity in the Vel D’Hiv roundup, directed by Rene Bousquet. ” . . . . . . . . On 2 July 1942, Bousquet and [SS] Carl Oberg [in charge of the French Police] prepared the arrests known as the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup (Rafle du Vel’ d’Hiv). Bousquet personally canceled orders protecting some categories of people from arrests, notably children under 18 and parents with children under 5. After the arrests, some bishops and cardinals protested; Bousquet threatened to cancel tax privileges for Catholic schools. . . .”

4. Bousquet was held in high regard by Heinrich Himmler: ” . . . . In April 1943, Bousquet met with Heinrich Himmler. Himmler declared himself ‘impressed by Bousquet’s personality’, mentioning him as a ‘precious collaborator in the framework of police collaboration’. . . .”

5. Aides of Ms. Le Pen manifest affinity for the Third Reich. “. . . . ‘They [Le Pen aides Frederic Chatillon, and Axel Loustau] have remained National Socialist,’ said Aymeric Chauprade, once Ms. Le Pen’s principal adviser on foreign affairs. . . . ‘The only debatable point, in the use of the term ‘neo-Nazi,’ is the wrongful qualifier ‘neo,’ the affidavit states. . . . . . . . French television recently broadcast video from the 1990s of Mr. Loustau visiting an aging prominent former SS member, Léon Degrelle, a decorated warrior for Hitler and the founder of the Belgian Rex party, a prewar fascist movement. Other video showed Mr. Chatillon speaking warmly of his own visit with Mr. Degrelle, who was a patron saint of Europe’s far-right youths until his death in 1994. . . .”

6. Of considerable importance in the context of the coverage of the Nazi influences of the National Front is the fact that the post-war perpetuation of French fascism extends far beyond the Le Pen milieu. Mainstream, even “socialist” French politicians such as Francois Mitterand are bounded by definitive links with figures from the Vichy collaborationist government. “. . . . An example is his membership of the Volontaires Nationaux (National Volunteers), an organization related to François de la Rocque’s far-right league, the Croix de Feu, for one to three years, depending on the source.[2] On 1 February 1935, Mitterrand joined the Action française march, more commonly known as ‘l’invasion métèque’, to demonstrate against foreign doctors setting up in France with cries of ‘La France aux Français’. [This is similar to the theme of the National Front!–D.E.] There are two photos that show Mitterrand facing a police line,[3] published in Les Camelots du Roi by Maurice Pujo.[4] . . . .”

7. Mitterand’s fascist activities extended to opposition to supporters of Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, who resisted Mussolini’s takeover of his country: ” . . . . During the winter of 1936, François Mitterrand took part in action against Gaston Jèze. Between January and March 1936, the nationalist right and the Action française, campaigned for Jèze’s resignation.because he acted as a counsellor for Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, after he was driven from Addis Ababa by Mussolini’s troops during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. . . .”

8. Perhaps most important for our purposes concerns Mitterand’s postwar relationship with Bousquet, who financed Mitterand’s political career and did so for other left-wing French politicians. “. . . The most damming of all charges against Mitterrand and his right wing connections is probably his long lasting friendship with René Bousquet, ex secrétaire général of the Vichy police. Charles de Gaulle said of Mitterrand and Bousquet ‘they are ghosts who come from the deepest depths of the collaboration.'[24] . . . . In 1974, René Bousquet gave financial help to François Mitterrand for his presidential campaign against Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. In an interview with Pierre Favier et Michel Martin-Roland Mitterrand claimed that he was not the only left wing politician to benefit from Bousquet’s money, as René Bousquet helped finance all the principal left wing politicians from the 1950s to the beginning of the 1970s, including Pierre Mendès France. . . .”

Program Highlights Include: Review of the French fascist Fifth Column that subverted the French military resistance to Hitler; discussion of the Cagoulard plot to overthrow the social front of Leon Blum; noting the concentration of economic ownership in prewar France and how that generated support for the Social Front of Leon Blum.

The events overtaking the United States are echoes of events occurring worldwide. This “2017 World Tour” examines aspects of ascendant global fascism, including historical and ideological trends stretching back to the World War II period.

Yet another of the fascist/Nazi/racist influences on Steve Bannon is French writer Charles Maurras. A doctrinaire anti-Semite, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for collaborating with the Third Reich.

Setting Maurras’s activities in an historical context, we recap an excerpt from FTR #372 (August of 2002) detailing the French Fifth Column that subverted the French military resistance to the armies of the Third Reich. Maurras’s L’Action Francaise was among the journals influencing French fascists, who saw the German invasion as a vehicle for eliminating democracy and, at the same time, blaming the defeat on government of Leon Blum, whose murder was advocated by Maurras.

In Italy, Bepe Grillo’s Five Star Movement is leading in the polls, and may come out ahead in the 2018 elections. Observers have seen the party as an heir to Mussolini’s blackshirts. We note, in passing, that the populist idealism officially endorsed by Five Star is similar to aspects of many left-populist agendas, while incorporating features of contemporary fascist politics.

Traveling northward, we observe the resuscitation of Slovakian fascism and the celebration of Nazi quisling Josef Tiso’s World War II collaborationist government. Social media/Facebook are a key element of the success of the “neo-Tiso’s.”

An American/Swedish axis, of sorts, manifests as a collaborative effort between Trumpenkampfverbande supporter Richard B. Spencer and Daniel Friberg, a key figure in the Swedish fascist milieu of Carl Lundstrom.

Traveling to Asia, we note the re-emergence of Japanese fascism, instituted in the Abe government by organizations like Nippon Kaigi. In addition to instituting revisionist teaching in the Japanese educational system, the Abe government is curtailing that country’s free press.

Several of Abe’s cabinet ministers are supportive of Hitler’s electoral strategy, seeing it as a blueprint for the implementation of Japanese reaction–among them Tomomi Inada, the new defense minister.

The program concludes with a look at Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist/fascist government and it selection of a hard-line anti-Muslim bigot to govern the state of Uttar Pradesh.

Program Highlights Include: review of Modi’s BJP as a cat’s paw for the Hindu nationalist/fascist RSS; discussion of the economic links between German and French industrialists that underlay the development of the French Fifth Column inspired, in part, by Charles Maurras; review of the links between Carl Lundstrom, WikiLeaks and Assange aide Joran Jermas, a doctrinaire Holocaust denier; review of the “Nazified AI” at the heart of Cambridge Analytica’s data manipulation engine.

The title of the program derives from “the Himmler Kreis”–Himmler’s circle of friends, the industrialists who financed the day-to-day workings of the Nazi SS and, in turn, received slave labor from Himmler’s inventory of incarcerated workers. We borrow on the Third Reich term to characterize the Friends of Trump–the Trumpen Kreis.

Beginning with review of UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage, we note the “Brexit” architect’s support for Donald Trump. In addition, we note that Farage has a German wife. Under other circumstances this would be unremarkable. In the context of covert operations/clandestine politics, a romantic/sexual partner/spouse might also be a case officer and/or paymaster.

We bring this up because the “Brexit” engineered by Farage and company removed a major obstacle to the creation of a German-dominated EU military force. ” . . . . With Britain, which had always adamantly opposed an integrated EU military policy, leaving the EU, Berlin sees an opportunity for reviving its efforts at restructuring the EU’s military and mobilizing as many member countries as possible for the EU’s future wars. . . .”

Interestingly, and perhaps significantly, Donald Trump has drawn support from Hindu nationalists of the Modi stripe. There is an important element of networking here: Trump campaign manager and “Alt-right” media figure Stephen K. Bannon is a supporter of Modi’s movement, as well as that of Nigel Farage. ” . . . . Mr. Trump may be largely indifferent to the reasons behind his Hindu loyalists’ fervor, but his most senior advisers are not. The campaign’s chief executive, Stephen K. Bannon, is a student of nationalist movements. Mr. Bannon is close to Nigel Farage, a central figure in Britain’s movement to leave the European Union, and he is an admirer of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist Mr. Bannon has called ‘the Reagan of India.’ It may be pure coincidence that some of Mr. Trump’s words channel the nationalistic and, some argue, anti-Muslim sentiments that Mr. Modi stoked as he rose to power. But it is certainly not coincidental that many of Mr. Trump’s biggest Hindu supporters are also some of Mr. Modi’s most ardent backers. . . .”

Trump has also received the support of the mercurial, bombastic Russian fascist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, whose political career was launched with the assistance of Gerhard Frey, a prominent German Nazi. Trump and Zhirinovsky have overlapping political styles: ” . . . . His combative style, reminiscent of Trump’s, ensures him plenty of television air time and millions of votes in Russian elections, often from the kind of blue-collar workers who are the bedrock of the U.S. Republican candidate’s support. Zhirinovsky once proposed blocking off mostly Muslim southern Russia with a barbed wire fence, echoing Trump’s call for a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. Zhirinovsky, who said he met Trump in New York in 2002, revels in his similarities with the American businessman – they are the same age, favor coarse, sometimes misogynistic language and boast about putting their own country first. . . .”

In FTR #921, we noted that Trump kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bed and read it to gain tips on the use of rhetoric. He appears to have borrowed a play from Der Fuhrer’s rhetorical playbook when addressing the Values Voters Summit: ” . . . He regaled the crowd of Christian voters in his usual bombastic way, but near the end of the speech, Trump seemed to play into the hands of his accusers who claim that not only does Trump remind people of infamous dictators like Italian fascist Benito Mussolini and German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler with his jingoism, blatant nativist nationalism, and over-the-top fact-twisting scapegoating, but he sounds like them as well. He paraphrased the infamous Nazi Party slogan, ‘Ein volk, ein reich, ein Fuhrer!’ . . . If one saw the speech, or watches it in replay, Trump begins raising his voice on the first use of the word ‘one,’emphasizing each part of the verbal triptych. Not only does he invoke the traditional lines from the Pledge of Allegiance, he progresses from, just as the Nazi Party slogan does, ‘one people’ (‘ein volk’) to ‘under one god’ (an implied unified Christian nation or ‘ein reich’) to ‘one flag’ (‘ein Fuhrer,’ the symbol of a unified nation). . . .”

Trump is also borrowing a rhetorical page from the Nazi playbook in his attacks on the press: ” . . . . On Saturday night, a new and foreign accusation came to the fore: ‘Lügenpresse!’ The term, which means ‘lying press’ in German, has a history dating back to the mid-1800s and was used by the Nazis to discredit the media. In recent years, it has been revived by German far-right anti-immigrant groups. And on Saturday, it made an appearance at a Trump rally in Cleveland, Ohio. . . Breitbart News [edited by Trump campaign manager Stephen K. Bannon] reported favorably on the term in an interview earlier this year with the leader of the German far-right group PEGIDA, writing, ‘It will come as no surprise to many that the mainstream media would lash out against a word that highlights their own, intentional failings. But [Lutz] Bachmann’s PEGIDA has popularized the term to the point where it has become a pillar — even a rallying cry — for the nationalist, populist movements across the continent.’ . . . Meanwhile, the hatred toward the press among the larger population of Trump supporters grows increasingly pronounced nearly every day. In these final weeks of the campaign, at nearly every rally, Trump riles up his audience against the press as reporters sit in the media pen, easy targets for vitriol. Reporters disembarking the press bus at Trump’s rally in Naples, Florida, on Sunday, the day after the ‘lügenpresse’ incident, were immediately greeted by boos and shouts of ‘Tell the truth!’ . . . ”

Concluding the broadcast, we note that David French, a conservative veteran of the Iraq war, has been viciously trolled by Trump’s Alt-Right followers because of his adoption of an Ethiopian orphan: ” . . . . In particular, the alt-right made a point to attack French’s youngest daughter, whom his family had adopted from Ethiopia. You see, alt-righters view bringing in children of color to America as the ultimate betrayal of the white race, which is why they had particular scorn for French. ‘I saw images of my daughter’s face in gas chambers, with a smiling Trump in a Nazi uniform preparing to press a button and kill her,’ he writes. ‘I saw her face photo-shopped into images of slaves. She was called a ‘niglet’ and a ‘dindu.’ The alt-right unleashed on my wife, Nancy, claiming that she had slept with black men while I was deployed to Iraq, and that I loved to watch while she had sex with ‘black bucks.’ People sent her pornographic images of black men having sex with white women, with someone photoshopped to look like me, watching. . . There is nothing at all rewarding, enjoyable, or satisfying about seeing man after man after man brag in graphic terms that he has slept with your wife. It’s unsettling to have a phone call interrupted, watch images of murder flicker across your screen, and read threatening e-mails. It’s sobering to take your teenage kids out to the farm to make sure they’re both proficient with handguns in case an intruder comes when they’re home alone.”

Program Highlights Include: Review of Trump’s links with the Steuben Society; review of the Steuben Society’s position in the Nazi underground in this country, before, during and after World War II; review of the political resume of Gerhard Frey; discussion of Blacks for Trump supporter “Michael the Black man” and his background in a murderous, anti-Semitic cult.

Continuing analysis of aspects of Donald Trump’s candidacy that have been eclipsed by his boorish attitude and behavior toward women, we note Trump’s use of thinly-veiled anti-Semitic rhetoric intimating that Hillary Clinton is in bed with an international Jewish cabal. ” . . . . The speech was hinged to the original purpose of his campaign: to trade on the resentments of a restive remnant of white America—angry white men and the women who love them—and set the stage for mayhem in the wake of his likely electoral defeat. This was not your standard, off-the-cuff Trump rant. This was a scripted speech, delivered with a teleprompter. It was crafted. It featured the key words of right-wing complaints: “sovereign,” “global bankers” and “slander.” Really, it came right out of a Nazi propaganda playbook. And when one considers the themes common between Nazi propaganda films and the films made by top Trump campaign staffers Stephen K. Bannon and David Bossie (as analyzed by AlterNet), we should hardly be surprised. . . . The agenda of the “media establishment,” Trump said, was to elect “crooked” Hillary Clinton, in the service of “special global interests rigging the system.” There are a lot of ways in the land of Wingnuttia to telegraph that your target is Jews, and these are two of them. Remember them: You’ll be hearing a lot in coming days about the “media establishment,” “global special interests,” oh, and “bankers.” . . . .”

Trump is also rhetorically invoking the prospect of turning to violence to right the wrongs of the “rigged” election he has bruited about. “ . . . . I watched his speech Thursday, and if I closed my eyes, I could smell the campfire smoke at the Malheur refuge and feel the Oregon winter wind on my face. Here were the conspiracies, the references to the shadowy international cabals, the whispers about the illegitimacy of the Department of Justice and the Trilateralist coopting of the FBI. It was like listening to an immodest Ammon Bundy. We have to protect ourselves from not just the government (because it is only a pawn) but from the people who really run it. We should be watchful, resilient, ready—and though he is reluctant, he will sacrifice himself, for he is the only one who can save us from the terror. Donald Trump shouted out every fevered dystopian fantasy I heard on the refuge . . . . I was outraged by Trump before. But now I am worried. . . . Thursday, Donald Trump traveled a step further down the path of militant right-wing revolution. It wasn’t a call to arms, exactly. But it was far past the point of comfort. . . .”

A major point of discussion concerns Trump’s deputy campaign manager, David Bossie. Even as Trump accuses Hillary of being a tool of the “elites,” Trump is utilizing Bossie, who is the head of Citizens United. It was a lawsuit by Bossie’s organization that opened the floodgates to virtually unlimited campaign funding by the ultra rich, when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Citizens United. Bossie and Steven K. Bannon, Trump’s campaign manager, have utilized propaganda techniques pioneered by Hitler, Goebbels and company. ” . . . . The late Andrew Breitbart, founder of the website Bannon went on to lead, called Bannon the “Leni Riefenstahl of the Tea Party movement”—a reference to the infamous creator of Nazi propaganda films. While insisting to a Wall Street Journal reporter in 2011 that his work isn’t propaganda, Bannon went on to cite Riefenstahl among his main influences. . . . Ivana Trump, the candidate’s first wife, told Vanity Fair in 1990 that her husband kept a copy of Adolf Hitler’s My New Order, a collection of speeches that display the Nazi dictator’s exceptional ability to manipulate reality, in a cabinet near his bed. . . . . The Nazi regime produced a massive amount of propaganda; it had an entire Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, headed by Joseph Goebbels. A central technique of Nazi propagandists, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, was to cast Jews as outsiders and dangerous enemies of the Reich, ‘‘subhuman’ creatures infiltrating Aryan society.’ . . . In her analysis of Riefenstahl’s ‘Triumph of the Will,’ Price noted that ‘perhaps most critically, Germany’s comeback is portrayed as well underway; the viewer need only jump aboard. What is being said implicitly is that there is no alternative.’ In ‘Battle for America,’ Bannon and Bossie follow the same formula, positing the Tea Party movement as the bandwagon to jump on. But the formula isn’t the only thing about the film that carries echoes of Goebbels: a researcher and counsel for the film was white nationalist Robert Vandervoort. . . .”

Program Highlights Include: The arrest of militia members in Kansas for plotting an attack on Somali refugees, scheduled for the day after Election Day; discussion of UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage’s support for Trump; the support Trump has received from Russian fascist Vladimir Zhirinovsky; Zhirinovsky’s funding by German Nazi Gerhard Frey; Frey’s dissemination of the disinformation that Lee Harvey Oswald fired at General Edwin Walker; Frey’s close association with Reinhard Gehlen; Trump’s close relationship with the Steuben Society.

Continuing analysis of Donald Trump’s candidacy, this program highlights Trump’s successful use of Hitler’s rhetorical style and principles. Blogger Josh Marshall noted: ” . . . This was as wild and as unbridled a speech as I’ve seen from Trump. Even if you couldn’t understand English, it would be stunning to watch the slashing hand gestures, the red face, the yelling. . . . Watching this speech, compared to the press conference today in Mexico City, what kept coming to my mind was the contrast between Hitler’s uniformed rally speeches from the hustings and the suited, statesman Hitler we see in the old news reels in Munich and at other iconic moments in the late 1930s. . . . the demagogic style, the frenzied invocation of familial blood sacrificed to barbaric outsiders – these are not unique to him [Hitler]. When we see this lurid, stab-in-the-back incitement, the wild hyperbole, the febrile railing against outsiders who will make us no longer a country – the similarities are real. More than anything, perhaps the most chilling part of this day is the contrast between the two men – a measured, calm statesman figure we saw this afternoon and this railing, angry demagogue figure who captured the emotional tenor of a Klan rally. . . .” The similarity does not appear to be coincidental: “. . . . Donald Trump appears to take aspects of his German background seriously. John Walter works for the Trump Organization, and when he visits Donald in his office, Ivana told a friend, he clicks his heels and says, ‘Heil Hitler,’ possibly as a family joke. . . . Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler’s collected speeches, ‘My New Order,’ which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. . . .” The principles of the book have been put into action: “. . . . But it appears that one way or another, much of the content in ‘My New Order’ about how Hitler says propaganda works, and how he structures his speaking style, and how Hitler targets the lowest-common denominator as his intended audience, has seeped into Trump: the way he speaks, argues, rages and responds in public. . . .” Trump’s rhetorical reincarnation of Hitler corresponds to political support from a bevy of fascists and white supremacists, old and new, as discussed in FTR #’s 882 and 920. Furthermore, the financing for his complex, mysteriously opaque real estate operations comes from institutions and individuals linked to the remarkable and deadly Bormann capital network, as highlighted in FTR #920. Continuing to manifest “dog whistles” directed at the Nazi faithful, Trump’s campaign presented the unlikely number of 88 high-ranking military officers who support his candidacy, channeling the “88” device used by postwar Nazis to code “Heil Hitler.” (“H” is the 8th letter of the alphabet.) One of the few observers to correctly analyze the scandalous role of the media in their coverage of Trump’s campaign is former CNN host Soledad O’Brien: ” . . . ‘If you look at Hillary Clinton’s speech where she basically pointed out that what Donald Trump has done — actually quite well — has normalized white supremacy,’ O’Brien explained to CNN host Brian Stelter on Sunday. ‘I think she made a very good argument, almost like a lawyer. . . . The former CNN host argued that the question that journalists should be asking is if Trump is ‘softening the ground for people — who are white supremacists, who are white nationalists, who would self-identify that way — to feel comfortable with their views being brought into the national discourse to the point where they can do a five minute interview happily on national television? And the answer is yes, clearly,’ she said. ‘And there is lots of evidence of that.’ . . .” The program concludes with a reading from “They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-1945”–listeners should compare their subjective experience of the present with that of a professor who lived through Hitler’s ascension. Program Highlights Include: review of Deutsche Bank’s primary role in backing Trump’s business operations; review of George Soros’ backing of Trump’s business dealings; review of Soros’s role in “Aryanizing” Jewish property during the Holocaust; review of the links of the Bormann capital network’s pivotal role in Deutsche Bank and the Union Bank of Switzerland, another financier of Trump properties; an early manifestation of German “Ostpolitik,” in which the SS intelligence service floated the idea to Allen Dulles that Germany would ally with Russia.

QUICK: How many Presidential candidates can you name who kept a book of Adolf Hitler’s speeches by their bedside? Donald Trump does. For many years, what Mr. Emory terms “The Underground Reich” has been a fundamental point of discussion and analysis in these broadcasts and posts. In the third program analyzing the Donald Trump campaign, we examine the “Trumpenkampfverbande,” its political antecedents and adherents. Exemplifying, and networking with, generations of fascists and fascist organizations, the Trumpenkampfverbande embodies the emergence of the Underground Reich into plain view. A signature element of Trump’s campaign is his resuscitation of the “America First” slogan and concept, a manifestation both of his thinly-veiled appeal to Nazi and white supremacist elements and his willingness to cede dominance over world affairs to a German-dominated “third power bloc.” The America First concept mobilizes powerful feelings among those feeling overwhelmed and left behind by political and economic developments globally and in the United States. We note that the “original” America First was financed by Nazi Germany. Trump’s invocation of America First exemplifies the nature of his political heritage and allegiances. One of his top advisers Joseph E. Schmitz, “obsessed with all things German” and, according to associates, someone who “fired the Jews” (from the Pentagon) and manifested Holocaust denial. This is not atypical of “Team Trump.” One of the most important figures in mainstreaming “alt right” (i.e. Nazi, white nationalist and anti-Semitic) attitudes has been Breitbart’s Steve Bannon, now essentially running the Trump campaign. Trump and his campaign have a habit of re-tweeting information from “alt right” websites and message boards. Of primary significance in analyzing Trump concerns the main financial backer of his real estate projects–Deutsche Bank. In addition to the fact that this places a potential President in the position of owing upwards of $100 million to an institution that has openly defied U.S. regulatory positions, Deutsche Bank is a primary element of the remarkable and deadly Bormann capital network, about which we speak so often. Program Highlights Include: Analysis of the possibility that Trump’s father was in the Ku Klux Klan; review of Trump’s association with former Axis spy Norman Vincent Peale; review of Trump’s counsel–Senator Joe McCarthy aide Roy Cohn; Trump’s additional financial backing from George Soros, who got his start in business “Aryanizing” Jewish property during the Holocaust; Trump’s tweeting of a campaign ad featuring Waffen SS-clad World War II re-enactors; The enthusiastic suppoprt Trump has received from David Duke.

Continuing our analysis of Donald Trump as a political animal, the program returns to the subject of traditional German “Ostpolitik.” As set forth in FTR #918, Germany has–for centuries–sought to stabilize its relationship with Russia in order to further its geopolitical hegemonic goals. Beginning with the subject of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort’s work for the Russia-allied Yanukovich government in Ukraine, we note that available evidence points to Manafort as a cat’s paw for covert action and regime change. His clients in the past include former Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who did not share the Golden Lily wealth to the satisfaction of the United States and was subsequently overthrown in a U.S.-backed coup. After reviewing German Ostpolitik as articulated in the early 1950s by the Adenauer government in Germany and Underground Reich Fifth Column elements in the U.S., the program notes that the basic goals of that early 1950s manifestation of the policy have either been reached or are under development: a German-dominated unified Europe, a German-dominated European military structure; a German-dominated EU/Russian/Eurasian economic union stretching from “Lisbon to Vladivostok,” and the gradual pivot from the U.S. to Russia as a critical German ally (as reflected in an important recent German poll.) The program notes that the complex, altogether opaque Trump real estate empire apparently fronts for, among other interests, powerful German corporations, families and individuals. Those interests, as we have seen in FTR #305, are under the control of the remarkable and deadly Bormann capital network. Key Trump foreign policy adviser Joseph E. Schmitz is obsessed “with all things Steuben” and “all things German” according to a former colleague at the Pentagon. Schmitz’s brother John P. Schmitz is works with dominant German corporations, placing him in the same corporate landscape as Trump and his real estate empire. It is our view that Trump’s pronouncements about Russia, Ukraine and NATO are similar in functional intent to the “Open Letter to Stalin” published in the “Buerger Zeitung.” His stances in this regard are meant to precipitate what pro-Adenauer media sources termed “a bidding war” between the U.S. and Russia, with Germany as the beneficiary of a ” . . . heated atmosphere of an auction room where two eager opponents outbid each other. . . .” Program Highlights Include: Review of John P. Schmitz’s relationship to the Robert Bosch Foundation; review of the Bosch Foundation’s links to the Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft, which sponsored Mohamed Atta’s entry into the United States; John P. Schmitz’s links to Matthias Wissman, and Wissman’s links to Holocaust-related lawsuits; Joseph E. Schmitz’s reported anti-Semitism and Holocaust revisionism: “ . . . .’His summary of his tenure’s achievement reported as ‘…I fired the Jews,’ . . . . ‘In his final days, he allegedly lectured [former Pentagon Inspector General] Mr. [John] Crane on the details of concentration camps and how the ovens were too small to kill 6 million Jews,’ . . . .”; review of Joseph E. Schmitz’s post-Pentagon work as head of the parent company of Blackwater.

Donald Trump’s pronouncements about Russia’s policy vis a vis Ukraine and Crimea, his relatively benign statements about Putin, Putin’s relatively benign statements about Trump, Trump’s comments that are critical of NATO and the relationship between former Trump campaign aide Paul Manafort and Victor Yanukovich (the pro-Russian former president of Ukraine) have led many to view Trump as a “Putin/Kremlin/Russian” “dupe/agent.” In the first of two broadcasts, we analyze Trump’s views and associations in this regard in the context of traditional German “Ostpolitik,” as manifested by the postwar Federal Republic of Germany and the Underground Reich in particular. It is our considered opinion that Trump, far from being a “Putin/Kremlin/Russian” “dupe/pawn/agent” is an associate and operative of the Underground Reich and his attitudes toward Russia, Putin, Crimea and NATO reflect German “Ostpolitik.” For centuries, German and Prussian leaders and strategists have sought practical alliances and non-aggression pacts with Russia as a vehicle for securing their Eastern frontier, enhancing their commercial trade infrastructure and furthering their European and global hegemonic goals. In the Cold War and “New Cold War” eras, this Ostpolitik serves as a “good cop/bad cop” dynamic, giving Germany leverage with the U.S. and Russia/U.S.S.R. by creating ” . . . the heated atmosphere of an auction room where two eager opponents outbid each other. . . .” After presenting a synopsis of German Ostpolitik as practiced by German leaders over the centuries, the program highlights the manifestation of ostpolitik in the early Cold War period. In a 1949 letter in the “Buerger Zeitung,” the journalistic outlet for the Steuben Society, an open courting of Stalin and the U.S.S.R. is presented by Nazi and SA veterans Bruno Fricke and Dr. Otto Strasser. Despite its far-right and McCarthyite orientation, the paper openly advocates an alliance between a re-armed Germany and the Soviet Union, managed on the German side by Third Reich veterans. This signaled a “bidding war,” and was followed three years later by the Soviet Note of 3/10/1952, which echoed the call for the goals of the Fricke letter and which, in turn, heralded Germany’s drive for a unified Europe under German control and a re-armed Germany, which, ultimately, would leave NATO, along with the rest of Europe. ” . . . . The reaction of the German strategists to the Soviet Note of March 10, 1952, however, exposes their true designs. German geo-political journals speak of it as “the highest trump card in the hands of the Chancellor” which will enable him to mow down the resistance of France against Germany’s concept of a united Europe. The pro-Adenauer press interpreted the Russian Note as a tremendous asset in speeding up the timetable for the creation of a European army under German domination. . . .” Analyzing the nature of the Steuben Society, whose “Open Letter to Stalin” signaled the drive for the realization of the creation of a German-Dominated Third Power Bloc, the broadcast sets forth the Steuben Society’s position as part of the Nazi Fifth Column in pre-war America, and its continued activities as part of the postwar Underground Reich. Joseph E. Schmitz, of the far-right and Germanophile Schmitz family of California, is a key adviser to Donald Trump. Former Inspector General of the Pentagon under George W. Bush, Schmitz was, in the words of a former Pentagon colleague, “consumed with all things German and all things Von Steuben.” Is Schmitz a generative source for Trump’s resonance with German Ostpolitik? With the EU and the development of an EU military apparatus, contemporary Germany is manifesting the geopolitical goals of Adenauer’s and the “Buerger Zeitung’s” ostpolitik. Program Highlights Include: Joseph E. Schmitz’s involvement with a Von Steuben-linked German security network; Schmitz’s son’s involvement with the Von Steuben milieu; the “Buerger Zeitung’s” position as a key journalistic outlet for German-Americans; the “Buerger Zeitung’s” far-right, pro-McCarthy position.